Saturday, December 27, 2008

The Covert Rationing Blog » Blog Archive » The Two Flavors of Covert Rationing: "The Wonkonians and Gekkonians have one more common feature that deserves prominent mention. In each, the primary solution to the healthcare crisis requires limiting the capacity of doctors to behave as independent agents. In one case this is to be done by regulatory means in order to stifle physician greed; in the other it is to be done by the marketplace in order to eliminate physician inefficiency. But either way the primary goal, the number one priority, is to control physicians’ behavior. To the extent that controlling physicians’ behavior prevents them from being greedy or inefficient, that’s good. But to the extent that controlling their behavior prevents them from fulfilling their defining role as advocates for their patients, that’s bad. Very bad. (We’ll explicitly discuss the importance of the classic doctor-patient relationship, and why we can’t have it anymore under covert rationing, in a future post.)"

I wish DrRich had coined better names instead of using the terms, Wonkonians and Gekkonians, to make viral marketing of his ideas much easier. Every doctor should read what he has to say - and worry about thefuture !